So I had a few spare moments, my mind began to wander, and I was thinking …
Is there stuff that really doesn’t belong on the front page of a newspaper? Sure. So when a reader e-mailed this week asking about our front-page photo of a bad guy being captured by the police, I wondered if this fell into the “doesn’t belong” category.
For me, part of the strength of a front page is the variety it brings to readers. So, for example, if we were running a “bad guy getting captured” photo on the front page every day … not so good.
In fact, of the dozen or so display photos we ran on our front pages this week, very few were “bad.”
Some might even argue this one bad guy photo is actually a good photo. It shows a job well done by a police officer.
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Not everyone has lived around this beautiful area forever and The Columbian should remember that. We recently ran a story about American Indian tribes selling $7 a pound spring chinook salmon just off the Bridge of the Gods. The story said it was about 40 miles east of Vancouver.
A resident — who has been living in the area about two years — called to ask for more detail.
He’s right of course, and I gave him a quick explainer on Highway 14 and Interstate 84 — something that wasn’t in the story — and he said he’d likely make the trip.
• o o
Speaking of salmon, the spring chinook I mentioned is considered by many to be the best-tasting salmon. But that “considered by many” line is always up for debate.
Another reader said he could buy salmon at $10 a pound at a grocery store, so why take the long drive?
Well I took a trip to the grocery store to check out the $10 a pound stuff. It wasn’t spring chinook. It’s usually Atlantic salmon — which is almost always farm raised — or Alaskan sockeye — which is “considered by many” to not taste as good as spring chinook. Your choice.
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Unfortunately we’re guilty of making people mad sometimes.
Sometimes it’s because we goof. Putting a paper out every day and constantly updating a Web site is frenetic.
Other times, we have to report “difficult” news. If you’re in the middle of that, well, we understand if our dinner invitation doesn’t come.
Either way, most people understand how it works and we move on to the next day.
But not everyone.
For example, businesses have been known to pull their advertising from the media because reporters either got something wrong or because they simply didn’t like the news.
I heard, for example, that Toyota had done this with ABC News because it felt the reporting was too tough.
There are local examples as well. But whom does that really hurt? Sure, it hurts us; we depend on advertising. But businesses use the media to reach customers because it works. So not using us hurts the business as well.
So here’s a shout-out for those who don’t fall into that trap. And here’s hoping our readers frequent those who advertise with us to show their support.
Lou Brancaccio is The Columbian’s editor. Reach him at 360-735-4505 or lou.brancaccio@columbian.com.
